Testing a well

Test at least once a year for nitrate, total dissolved solids, and E. coli or fecal coliform, and test again whenever something changes. No Texas rule was found that makes a private owner do it, so the schedule is yours to keep.

7-1 Nobody is checking but you

Chapter 6 ended with a well drilled and a log on file. From here on, the water is your job. A customer of a water supply corporation gets the yearly report described in Chapter 4. A well owner gets nothing unless the owner asks for it.

Texas A&M's guidance says that private water wells "are not required to meet the national drinking standards."¹ Owners can still use those standards as a yardstick. No Texas state rule was found requiring a private owner to test.

The same guidance sets the habit. Test at least once a year.² At a minimum that yearly test covers nitrate, total dissolved solids, and E. coli or fecal coliform.³

Nitrate figures come from the state's Well Owner Network publications.⁴⁵ The fault zone figure comes from the Texas Water Development Board.⁶

If a test puts nitrate over that limit, do not give that water to an infant, and ask your doctor and the lab what to use instead. Boiling does not fix nitrate. EPA says "Boiling water will NOT reduce nitrate levels," and that it makes the level worse, because some of the water evaporates and the nitrate does not.¹⁵

7-2 When once a year is not enough

Four things call for an extra test: a reason to suspect contamination, a change in color, taste or odor, pump or well maintenance, and an illness you cannot explain.³

The maintenance one is easy to skip. A pump pulled from the casing, as in Figure 7-1, has been handled, set down somewhere, and lowered back into your drinking water. Test after the work, not at the next yearly date.

7-3 Adding to the list for your aquifer

The yearly three are the floor. What else belongs on the order depends on what you drink from, which Chapter 5 tried to narrow down and your well log may settle.

The descriptions come from the Board's aquifer pages.⁶⁷⁸⁹ The right-hand column is this book's suggestion, not an agency's. Note what the table does not say. Hard water is not a given here. Two of those four are described as soft, so hardness depends on the source, and a test comes before any purchase.

If your test shows iron, treatment becomes a real question, and an iron filter made for well water (SoftPro, run by the same team as this book) is one kind of equipment sold for it. Without a test result, it is a guess. Chapter 20 deals with hardness and softeners on the same terms.

7-4 Taking a sample that means something

A careless sample tells you about the faucet. AgriLife's sampling sheet, E-126 from 2001, lays out the method, and the steps below follow it.¹⁰ Your lab's own instructions come first wherever they differ.

Get a sterile container from the lab. Use a cold faucet with the aerator taken off. Skip any tap that is hot, mixed, leaky, softened or filtered, and do not sample from a hose. Sanitize the tip of the faucet. Run it at full flow for 5 minutes, then cut it back to a stream about the width of a pencil. Fill the lab's bottle without letting it overflow. Figure 7-2 shows where on the spigot this happens, not the container.

Keep the sample cold and get it moving. The sheet says six hours to the lab is best and 30 hours is the outer limit. It also warns that many labs refuse bacteria samples on a Friday, so ask before you fill anything at the end of a week.

7-5 Where the sample goes

TCEQ runs the state's environmental laboratory accreditation program, and AgriLife sends well owners to TCEQ's list of labs.¹¹¹² This book has not confirmed which labs near Paris take well samples, so it names none. Call one on the list and ask three things: does it accept private well samples, what bottle does it want, and which days can you bring it in.

An older AgriLife sheet from 2006 says some county health departments and local hospitals may test for bacteria.¹³ That is worth one phone call to your county. Do not count on it until someone there says yes.

The Texas Well Owner Network holds screenings, "Well Educated" over a half day and "Well Informed" in about an hour, where people bring samples with a form.¹⁴ An undated listing, not confirmed, shows one in Mount Pleasant. None was found scheduled in Lamar County for 2025 or 2026, so check their calendar.

Keep each result with your well log (ordinary practice). A slow rise in nitrate only shows if the old numbers are still in the drawer.